Argentina is Going Down

Some people think it was the 15% drop in the peso that triggered the recent selloff in the emerging markets…and back in the US of A.

On the last two days of the week, the Dow lost nearly 500 points. And on Saturday, after-hours trading signalled worse to come. It looked as though the Dow would drop more than 300 points when the doors opened on Monday.

That didn’t happen. Instead, the Dow fell just 40 points.

So, we sit tight, wondering if the beginning of the end is coming now…or later. And when it happens, we won’t blame Argentina.

Argentina seems much too quirky and particular to be a leader of anything. For example, it’s the only place we know where you get better banking services out on the sidewalk than in the bank.

Every time we go we take a big wad of green pieces of paper with Ben Franklin’s picture on them. Driving directly to the town square in Salta (close to the family ranch), we then simply stop the truck and beckon over one of the many black-market moneychangers standing in front of the bank.

This time a year ago, one Ben Franklin would bring you nine pieces of paper with former Argentine president Julio Argentino Roca’s picture, in purple.

Roca was no match for Franklin. Reports from Salta tell us that the rate has gone over 13.

The official rate changes, too. It was only five Rocas to a Franklin a year ago. As of last Friday, it is 8. But wait…There are more official rates. There’s one for savers – 9.2. And one for travellers – 10.8.

Why so complicated?

It’s a long story. But the simple version is that the city of Buenos Aires is big and sophisticated. And like New York or San Francisco, it has socialist tendencies.

Here’s how it works: The urban intelligentsia provides the ideas. The urban proletariat provides the votes. And farm exports provide the money.

But the rural productive sector can never quite provide enough money to satisfy Buenos Aires’ longings. Farmers and other producers labour under such binding restraints – such as import/export restrictions – that even in a roaring bull market, such as we had three years ago, Argentina lost agricultural market share.

Now, without much money coming in, the government prints money to pay its bills and lies about inflation. The money supply in Argentina has been increasing at a rate of about 40% a year. And yet, the keepers of Argentina’s official numbers maintain that consumer prices have been rising less than 10% a year.

When everyone had caught on that prices were obviously rising much faster than a 10% annual clip, the Argentine feds tried to control prices…as well as the statistics that measure them. Last year, they enacted a ‘voluntary’ price control measure at the supermarkets.

This was the work of Argentina’s 42-year-old minister of the economy, Axel Kicillof. He is probably a decent guy. He taught economics at the University of Buenos Aires. The papers say he ‘reinterpreted Keynes from a Marxist perspective.’ With this intellectual toolkit, he says he has the leaks under control.

Most likely, our man on the scene, Miguel, has a clearer picture.

‘I dropped my Kindle reader and broke it,’ he reports. ‘I wanted to order another one from Amazon. But the government just announced a 50% import tax. That’s in addition to the 35% penalty I would pay on credit card purchases from overseas. You also have to go to [an office of the tax collector] and wait for hours to do the paperwork. It’s not worth that much.‘

So, Amazon lost a sale. And the Argentine economy lost a connection to sanity.

‘This is just the beginning,‘ Miguel continues. ‘We’re headed into another real crisis. The people are restless and the government is desperate. We’ve got major union negotiations coming up. It wouldn’t be at all surprising to see riots… looting… and some kind of bankruptcy or default.‘

If Markets and Money editor, Vern Gowdie is correct, the Australian stock market could be headed for a devastating correction to rival the GFC. And these five stocks will be dragged through the financial carnage.

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Bill Bonner

Since founding Agora Inc. in 1979, Bill Bonner has found success and garnered camaraderie in numerous communities and industries. A man of many talents, his entrepreneurial savvy, unique writings, philanthropic undertakings, and preservationist activities have all been recognized and awarded by some of America's most respected authorities.

Collapse in Argentina? So what? Collapse is an art form there. They do it every ten years. With all the practice, it will come natural and easy. The Argentines will get through it doing the Tango and sipping yerba mate.

Collapse in Argentina? So what? Collapse is an art form there. They do it every ten years. With all the practice, it will come natural and easy. The Argentines will get through it doing the Tango and sipping yerba mate.

upon reading this, after irrigating my snozzola w/ coffee, i had this thought:
culturally, given “liberation theology’s” reinterpretation of Biblical themes and exhortations, from this same Marxist perspective, this does not seem totally unreasonable.
ex-peri|mental, as advertised!

and this one:
if the bishops and priests are going to have Karl turning in his grave, the Central Planning Economists might as well get John Maynard rolling over, too…

upon reading this, after irrigating my snozzola w/ coffee, i had this thought:
culturally, given “liberation theology’s” reinterpretation of Biblical themes and exhortations, from this same Marxist perspective, this does not seem totally unreasonable.
ex-peri|mental, as advertised!

and this one:
if the bishops and priests are going to have Karl turning in his grave, the Central Planning Economists might as well get John Maynard rolling over, too…

On minor correction: the government didn’t “announce a 50% import tax”. That has been there for years and years, every citizen has a “license” of 25 USD per year so if you buy something abroad you pay 50% of whatever amount in excess of that license (including shipping :S). What they did announce about imports is that now citizens have a limit of 2 incoming parcels per year, if you want to receive more than that you need to be registered as an importer and fill out a lot more paperwork than the usual (already quite big) amount. They also… Read more »

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3 years 7 months ago

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